


Psmith & the Old School Chum

by aurilly



Category: Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: When Wyatt returns for a visit, Mike ends up with two best friends vying for his attention.
Relationships: Mike Jackson/Rupert Psmith
Comments: 16
Kudos: 55
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Psmith & the Old School Chum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohmyvalar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyvalar/gifts).



Psmith had been making a study of Sherlock Holmes in the past couple of weeks. Entering the flat and finding the old Etonian deep in the brocade armchair, with his slippered feet on the ottoman, had become a quotidian sight for Mike. 

“They keep you too late,” Psmith opined. “The thing is insupportable. An entire hour later in the postage department.”

“I did it as a favor to Rossiter. He’ll get me back another day. I didn’t mind.”

“And yet, I do mind. Without you, who will listen to my thoughts on life and its mysteries? By the by, you have a letter.”

Psmith nodded at the mantelpiece.

“It’s from Wyatt!” Mike said, upon recognizing the handwriting. He tore it open at once. 

“And what does the herder of beasts and boys have to say?”

Mike had never been a quick reader, but there was a certain rhythm to Wyatt’s letters that he had learned. He scanned, looking for the most salient information.

“Why, he’s set to come to London, on business.”

“And who may these lucky new employers be?” Psmith asked, as tactfully as one could regarding such a painful subject.

Mike hadn’t understood the particulars of the Jackson family fortune’s sudden plummet, but his father had mentioned something tedious about tariffs between Argentina and England. As a result, the position Mike had worked four years ago to secure for Wyatt, his best friend at Wrykyn, now reported to new management. Or he had gone to work at a different place. Wyatt’s letters had always been devoid of practical details, and the letters themselves had been coming more infrequently as the years had passed.

Mike sat down and took the time to read it properly. 

“A Spanish organization, it seems,” he guessed, through the ink splotches and stain of what smelled like beer. He looked at the envelopes again. “Goodness, he sent this ages ago. It seems to have gone first to my family, and then here. In fact, he might already have arrived in London!”

At this moment, the doorbell rang. Mike jumped. Psmith remained placid in his armchair.

“We do not often entertain. I hope the old homestead is clean enough to do us justice. I know I should have dusted behind the sofa last week, but sloth, sloth, your pull is inexorable. I wonder who it might be. An angry neighbor, come to complain about the noise we fail to make? A young boy selling nuts door to door? The ghost of Christmas past starting his rounds a month early? The sheer suspense could kill a man. See about resolving the mystery, would you, Comrade?” 

“Who is it?” Mike called through the door.

“It’s Wyatt, you old ass.”

Mike flung open the door. It had been years, but he’d recognize Wyatt anywhere. Even this new, Argentine-flavored Wyatt. The cultivated English schoolboy pallor had been replaced by a deep, golden tan. Where there had once been bony limbs encased by the thin wool of a uniform, there was now muscular bulk covered by oddly cut trousers. 

But for all that, the difference in how Mike viewed Wyatt had more to do with Mike. Between the ages of sixteen and nineteen, Mike had achieved the height shared by all his brothers. He rivaled even Psmith in inches, but possessed a sturdier build, that of an athlete instead of a beanpole. Wyatt had already been eighteen when they’d met, and hadn’t grown at all. It was odd to look down at his old friend, who still loomed large in Mike’s memory. 

“Wyatt!”

“You seem surprised to see me.”

"I only just read your letter a minute ago. There was a sort of delay with the post." Mike realized that he was blocking his friend's entrance, and stepped aside to let him in. "Come in, come in, old man."

"These are quite the digs," Wyatt said as he looked around. "Your pater wrote to say that you were toiling away at a bank. I thought such labor was remunerated with a pittance. If I'd known I could live like this, I might not have asked to get out of it." 

Mike blushed. Between himself and Psmith, there was no question of charity or indebtedness; over the past few months, Mike had almost forgotten how pampered a life he led, wholly out of synch with his station, thanks to Psmith's and Smith Sr's generosity. Tonight, however, was the first time they'd entertained a guest in the flat, and therefore, it was the first time Mike had received an embarrassing reminder of his dependency. 

With a well-timed spin of his chair, Psmith came into view and rose elegantly, like a statesman just finished drafting a peace treaty and looking for a cigar, to save him from awkward explanations through the power of persiflage. "Welcome to our humble abode, with which we as titans-in-the-making must make due until we have, as they say in America, 'made it big'. The view out the window leaves much to be desired, or, rather, less, given that its chief detraction is the penchant our neighbors across the street have for walking about in the nude. But other than that, the circulation is fresh, the teakettle always warm, and the upholstery only fashionably ratty. As an aged friend of Comrade Jackson's, you are, of course, welcome to all that we have."

With this grand speech completed, Psmith settled his monocle in his eye and peered through it at Wyatt.

Other old Wrykynians who had been introduced to Psmith in the clubs or at the theatre had looked to Mike rather helplessly at similar points in the proceedings, but Wyatt was made of sterner stuff. He appraised Psmith right back. "So, you work at the bank, too? You must be the Smith fellow that Mr Jackson mentioned when I phoned a bit ago for the address." 

Psmith took a little bow. "I am Psmith. I notice you forgot the P at the beginning. It is a subtle, silent difference, but one which I appreciate new friends adopting. I aim to start a groundswell with this name, starting with the intimate circle of my five hundred or so acquaintance, and then enlarging to the world."

"Smith and I knew one another at my other school. I think in my last letter to you, I wrote that father had sent me down to a place called Sedleigh." 

Psmith shook his head sadly. "Et tu, Comrade Jackson? Et tu?" 

Ignoring him, Wyatt nodded, "I remember this now. Wretched hole. And a shame, putting a cricketer like you in such a place. And now a bank! We must see what can be done for you. You're not meant for all this, no matter how natty the digs. I can see I came back not a moment too soon. I'll have to take you in hand, as I did years ago. You're not being properly looked after." 

Wyatt had addressed this speech to an attentive Mike, and thus, they both missed the shadow that momentarily flitted across Psmith's face at these words. 

"I'm doing all right, apart from being cooped up in the bank," Mike replied. "There are some good chaps there, too. Do you remember Andrew Byers, played football at Wrykyn? He's there. And John Glanston, too." 

"Really?" Wyatt asked. "They _were_ good chaps. It's be a lark to see them again."

"Well, we can. They're bound to be out tonight. I think they said they were going to a late dinner at a little place not too far from here. I'm sure they'd be glad to see you again." Mike looked at Psmith. "Let's!"

"It will be a great night for the Old Wrykynians," Psmith said with a nod of acquiescence. "Do you need to change, or refresh yourself after your journey?"

Wyatt looked down at his attire, not taking the hint. "No. It wasn't much of a journey, unless you count a ten minute cab from my uncle's place in town."

"Oh, is that where you're staying?" Mike asked.

"For the week. But I was hoping to see as much of _you_ as possible." Wyatt grinned and suddenly folded Mike into a tight embrace that Mike had stopped preparing himself for after the moment for such excesses seemed to have passed and the conversation developed. 

When they disengaged, Psmith was gazing upon them blandly, hat in hand, but this time, Mike _did_ catch the shadow. "Shall we? It shall be my treat. A feast to welcome England's great hero back to our shores."

"Are you feeling all right?" Mike asked on their way down the stairs.

"Right as a rainbow, Comrade," Psmith replied lightly, but Mike noticed a speck of mud on his shoe that normally would not have remained for more than a nanosecond.

* * *

As predicted, Glanston and Byers were delighted with the surprise appearance of Wyatt, their erstwhile hero. He regaled them with tales of derring-do on the pampas, standoffs at gunpoint at the entrances to mines, successful horse-speed chases and heists. Some of his stories, told in customarily thrilling Wyatt style, were more outrageous than the most fabricated Western novel. And yet, they were all true, every one. If ever such things could happen to anyone, they would happen to Wyatt.

And yet, despite having his oldest best friend back with him, despite the deliciousness of the wine and the dazzling dinner, prepared by the Drones's best chef, Mike felt a little ill at ease. Psmith had talked less than Mike was accustomed to. Still a lot, of course, more than most people, and very engagingly, but Mike could tell something was wrong.

“Such tales befit the Wyatt of whom I have long heard," Psmith said blandly at the end of one of Wyatt's more exciting stories. 

"Oh, does Jackson talk about me still?" Wyatt poked Mike a little painfully in the ribs. 

"No, before tonight, he has mentioned you only once or twice during our acquaintance. But your legend looms large. Even at Eton, whispers of your exploits spread like wildfire. Wyatt was the name on all lips of those who aspired to a rag worth remembering. The Sousa-playing band was a crowning detail. An inspiration to revolutionaries such as myself."

“Ach,” Wyatt said, waving away the words with his cigarette smoke. “Boys’ stuff.”

"And what is it that you do now? What constitutes 'men's stuff'?" Psmith asked politely.

"Yes, how did you fare after… after…" Mike squirmed. They had no yet broached the uncomfortable subject of Jackson Sr's complete bust-up, businesswise, but Mike assumed that Wyatt would not have come to visit if he harboured any ill will about the company in which Mike had arranged for him to work going bankrupt. 

"I've got a new concern. An even bigger ones. Gold and silver mines in Uruguay. That's where the real money is, not in livestock."

"And have you mined any?" 

Wyatt pulled a silver nugget out of his pocket, just long enough to let those at his table see its flash before tucking it away again. "This is the first I ever unearthed, with my own two hands. I left the bigger ones and the gold ones in my vaults back in Uruguay. The ones I came here to sell are with the bankers now."

"So, you've made a mint?" Mike asked, only just now understanding what Wyatt had been too well-bred to boast. 

"A minor mint," Wyatt admitted humbly. 

"I say, perhaps I should have gotten myself expelled and gone down with you."

"I wish you would have. It would have been a lark. But it isn't too late."

Before Mike could continue that thread, Byers received an update of the day's cricket stores from one of the waiters, news which always demanded rapt attention. Fresh wine arrived, and arguments over players and their promise broke out afresh. Here, Mike, Byers and Glanston could school Wyatt on everything he'd missed. Unfortunately, Mike had a nagging sense that Wyatt, who had once ranked among Wrykyn's most avid devotees of the sport, was merely humoring them; it was possible that he no longer cared. He certainly lacked the latest news about the sport, which Mike initially put down to the distance; but as the conversation continued, he began to wonder if a lack interest was the real barrier. Even Psmith, who sometimes seemed to care about cricket only because Mike did, engaged more in the discussion than Wyatt.

After they had all analyzed the latest scores and caught Wyatt up on the past three years of cricket stars, Psmith made his gracious excuses. “Early to bed, in order to be early to rise. The exertions of the city and the education of my wayward employer require sleep. However, should the mood strike you, you will find a wealth of cats for shooting behind the Savoy.”

And with that parting bit of good advice, he left them to their scotch, stopping only at the host's table to settle the bill. Glanston and Byers soon said their goodbyes as well, leaving Mike and Wyatt alone at the table. 

“Tell me, how did you end up with such an odd duck?” Wyatt asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Smith, of course. Is that how they make them at Sedleigh?”

“No. He’s an Etonian, actually. We started Sedleigh at the same time.” Mike stopped, because that wasn’t what he’d meant to say. “No one at Sedleigh was like Smith. There's no one _anywhere_ like Smith." 

It boggled that Wyatt had failed to see what Mike understood so plainly, each and every day. Even those lacking in Psmith's particular friendship seemed to like him immediately. Psmith had the knack of making himself welcome and well-remembered everywhere he went. 

Wyatt was silent for a moment. "Oh, I see."

"What do you see?" 

"How it is, of course. I didn't think you went in for all that, but I suppose you were rather young, and I left before you were old enough to become much of a blood. You still don't seem like one, which suggests that perhaps instead you two are…"

Slowly, it dawned upon Mike what Wyatt was implying. "It isn't like that! That isn't how it is at all."

Wyatt paused in his lighting of a cigar. "Really? It certainly seems that way. That's _his_ flat, isn't it? And his membership to this club. And…"

"His father gives him an allowance on top of his salary, yes, but that doesn't mean…" Mike stammered hotly. " He's just a friendly, generous sort. Would do it for anyone. He's never once asked, we've never… It isn't…"

"All right, all right," Wyatt said, blowing smoke into Mike's face. "Don't get all worked up about it. I was merely making an observation, and that observation turned out to be, well, not quite right. I'm sorry. Though, for the record, I wouldn't care a fig if I had been." 

Mike took a deep breath, hoping he'd convinced Wyatt. For although what he'd said was the truth, it wasn't the entire truth. There had been times, yes, going back to Sedleigh even, when Mike had thought, or hoped… But each time, the moment had passed, and, he'd decided, if Psmith had ever felt so inclined, he probably would have said something. Psmith was such a sayer and doer of somethings, in general; his silence and passivity on this topic could only indicate a lack of interest. The idea had probably never occurred to him at all. Psmith called him 'Comrade', for goodness sake, just as he called everyone else, including chaps like Rossiter whom he certainly would never…

It didn't matter, he told himself yet again. The moments had always passed, and ever since they'd begun living together in London, they had ceased to occur almost entirely. And now, here was Wyatt, dredging up the dissatisfaction and disappointment Mike had so successfully quelled. 

"What _are_ you in London for, Wyatt?" Mike asked, once he'd collected himself. 

"I'm scouting, if you must know." 

"For what?"

"For new men, of course. In my mining endeavour. Well, one man in particular."

"Who?" Mike asked, a little stupidly, still stuck as he was on the irrelevant issue of Psmith.

"You, you young fool. I would like it very much if you came back with me."

“What, to Argentina?”

“Yes, where else? I’ve given my business partner an appetite for Englishman. He thinks we’re all variations on a Raffles theme, and now he has his heart set on acquiring another. One with a bit of spirit, a good eye, some shooting and riding. You’d love it. Outdoors all day long, farming. I’d wager an Englishman in Argentina has a better time than even your titans of finance over in India. Wide open spaces and riding for days. You could do anything you like.”

“It would surely beat sticking it in that bank every day.”

“Yes, and that’s another thing. That bank’s making you pale and thin. I was shocked—shocked I tell you—to see the toll it’s taken on the famous Jackson complexion. Come with me and we’ll get some colour back into you. And Mike, the _girls_. Like nothing we have here in England. Better even than French ones, I’d wager.” 

Given his eagerness of a moment ago to dissuade Wyatt's suspicions, Mike probably should have encouraged him to continue waxing on in this vein. However, Mike’s complete indifference to this inducement, an indifference that Mike himself had rarely, if ever, ruminated upon or even properly sensed until tonight, left him unable to pose the socially expected responses. Instead of contemplating curves of the fairer sex's flesh, Mike’s brain had focused on one key question that needed answering.

“Any cricket to be had out there?”

Wyatt paused at this. “Not as much as you might get here, certainly, nor of the same quality. But there’s a big enough cadre of us that we get up a game now and again. There's so much to do that I hardly miss the wicket, tell you the truth. It’s a real man’s life out there. None of this English weather. Nothing like the City. It’s glorious.”

Mike mulled it over. He doubted his father would care where he made his living, so long as he made it. And it wasn’t as though he were any great favorite of Mr. Bickersdyke’s. The sunshine did call to him, both in imagination and in the tan of Wyatt’s cheeks. There were only two impediments making him hesitate from writing to his father: the first was a lack of cricket and the second…

“Smith would take it awfully hard,” though what he really meant was that he would take it awfully hard.

“He’d want you to go. It would be a poor sort of friend, indeed, selfish enough to want you to turn down a chance to get out of that hole of a bank.”

“No, he would never say I shouldn’t.”

“You only met him a year ago, if I understand correctly. He must have got on before you. He’ll get on after you’ve gone. Especially since, as you say, you're only chums."

"I'll think about it."

"Good man."

* * *

When they finally staggered, a little tipsy after a six-hour dinner, out of the club, not a taxi was to be found. 

In the lucidity belonging only to drunkards and children, Mike suddenly remembered something he'd desperately wanted to ask earlier. “Will you show me your scar? From when you were shot.”

“If you want. The old war wound’s buried pretty deep, though, in these stuffy London clothes. Probably not a good idea to strip down in the street.”

"Where are you staying?" Mike asked. 

"Dashed if I know," Wyatt slurred. "Flat all hidden in a great court. I'd know it in daylight, of course, but…"

"Come and spend the night at mine. The sofa's comfortable enough, and you can find your way back in the morning."

Wyatt looked ready to make a dash for it, but lacked the proper coordination in his knees, which buckled beneath him. "I think I'll have to take you up on the offer."

They tiptoed in as quietly as they could, so as not to wake Psmith. Mike went into his room to get a spare set of pajamas for Wyatt. Handing them to him, he asked again, "Will you show me?"

It was a struggle to get off his shirt, and to prop the light just so, but by turning onto his stomach and practically dragging Mike on top of him to see, he was able to show the, admittedly, not very impressive scar on his side. It had paled over time, and was only visible because of Wyatt's deep tan.

While still peering at it, Mike heard footsteps approach and then stop. 

"Oh, hullo, Smith. Did we wake you?"

"Not at all, not at all," Psmith said, sounding a little strangled, but Mike put it down to being half asleep. "The sheep I was counting merely tripped over one another, and then I realized I was thirsty. Never mind me. You should, ahem, carry on."

He padded stiffly to the kitchen and returned a minute later with a glass of water. 

As he walked back into his room and closed the door, Mike realized it was the least Psmith had ever said in one go.

* * *

The next morning, Mike woke up alone in the flat. Wyatt had left a note thanking them both for the hospitality, but he'd needed to return to his uncle's before he was noticed missing. More bizarrely, Psmith, who always needed Mike to prod him out of bed and through breakfast, had uncharacteristically gotten himself up and out without making a noise. 

Mike found him at his habitual seat, lavender gloves laid neatly beside his inkpot.

"Is everything all right?" Mike asked, coming up behind him. "You left shockingly early this morning."

Psmith lay down his pen and turned elegantly on his stool. "I thought you needed the additional beauty rest. You were out much later than usual. And you seemed remarkably active even after you returned."

"I'm sorry again if we woke you. I had just asked Wyatt to show me his scar."

"Is that what they are calling it now? I had thought something a little less macabre would catch on. But such is fashion, such is slang. It is all we can do to keep up."

"I'm sorry?" Mike asked. This was one of those rare cases where he couldn't follow Psmith at all.

"Nothing, nothing, Comrade."

"You aren't angry that I invited him to stay, are you?" Mike asked, worried. 

"It is every bit as much your home as mine," Psmith said, sounding as wounded as he always did at insinuations that his generosity had limits. "You can invite anyone you wish to stay. I might draw the line at French royalty, if only because I doubt the maid, commendable as she is, would be able to remove blood stains emanating from the head."

"Oh dear, you _are_ upset about something, aren't you?" Mike asked, because Psmith only engaged in persiflage this dark when something was terribly wrong.

"A trifling headache, perhaps a cold. It may yet be the plague, but if it is, I promise to defeat it manfully through lozenges and hot water bottles. But not before I have taken you and your friend out to dinner again."

"Oh, you needn't," Mike rushed to reply. "I'm sure between Wyatt and me, we can…"

"I see." 

Rossiter passed by, and both boys moved to look busy at their work. 

“What are your plans for the evening?” Psmith asked.

“Wyatt wanted to meet up again. Go to the Gaiety, live it up a bit.”

“I see. For all its charms, Buenos Ayres is not London. The sounds and sights of urban life beckon. It is only reasonable, for a man as isolated as he to want to satiate himself on those rare breaks from the pampas.” Judging by his restive sigh, Psmith himself had felt such urges, despite never having left England.

“What about you?” Mike asked.

“If you two have no need of me, then I will I go to the Senior Conservative to break bread with an old friend from my primary school days. He is down from the country, looking for a rare breed of newt.”

“A…” Mike didn’t bother to continue. He thought he’d heard of this friend of Psmith’s, and he knew that, aside from himself, Psmith really preferred the company of such weirdoes. Sometimes Mike didn’t know why Psmith had made such an exception of him. "All right."

As he worked and the hours ticked by, Mike bristled even more than usual, especially with the opportunity that now weighed upon him. It was a beautiful day, by London standards, and the idea of a life in which he might be able to enjoy such a day seemed magical in its appeal. But then there was Psmith sitting beside him, and the reassuring _Englishness_ of everything around him—the accents, the tea, the cricket scores, the familiar sootiness of it all—that spoke of home. And Mike was, at his core, a quiet, homebody type. He loved nothing better than his convivial dinners with Psmith, followed by reading in the flat to the background noise of Psmith's musings on his crossword puzzle clues. 

"Your aura buzzes like an overactive wasp," Psmith said kindly during a lull. "I can hear it over the traffic noises outside. What troubles you, Comrade?"

“Tell you the truth, I don’t know how much longer I can stick this,” Mike said.

"Stick what?"

"This bank."

"We don't have many other options at this moment, though I promise you that I toil tirelessly to think of other paths we may follow to make our fortunes."

"Wyatt wants me to go to Argentina with him," Mike whispered. "That's another option."

Psmith sat back a little more sharply than usual, and almost toppled off his stool. "I see."

Mike waited for more, but none came. "That's all you have to say? 'I see?'"

"I'm certain I can come up with more soon, but the news has hit me like a wave. Have you made a decision?"

"I'm thinking about it. I have a few days to make up my mind. We could set sail as soon as next week."

"I see."

Psmith was not only not usually laconic, he also never repeated himself. Mike was staggered.

"You don't like him, do you?"

"Why should I not like him? He is a charming conversationalist, and I did not lie when I said he had been an inspiration to all of us at Eton. Moreover, he is thinking of your future. And his thoughts have proven more fruitful than mine. I would never have concocted such an opportunity, but I do see how it would make you happy."

"What about you?" 

"I'll survive. I shall stay in the bank until they send me East. Perhaps when next we see one another, it will be by my having traveled around the other side, through the Pacific and down past the tip of your Argentina. You, a gaucho, me a pasha. We'll hardly recognize one another as Englishmen."

Mike couldn't put his finger on what was wrong, but he didn't like this answer at all. Confirmation that something was amiss came when Psmith failed to rehang his scarf over the back of the coat rack after someone had jostled it. Hoping to fix things, Mike suggested, "I can ask him if he has room for one more—"

"No, my dear Comrade, I don't think he does. And I would not impose."

"What do you mean, impose?"

"Poor word choice," Psmith said, a little too quickly. "I meant that I do not think the life of a miner and a cow-boy would suit us stately Psmiths. The trousers are cut a little too loose. There is a storm of dust in the air. I would merely get in the way, old man. No, you go and find your fortune. I shall think of you anon, as the bosom friend of my youth, and the most successful man I ever met."

Mike tried to get the man to be serious, but that was always a losing proposition with Psmith. Eventually, he gave it up and went back to work.

* * *

"Have you thought it over any?" Wyatt asked that evening, during intermission of the show they had gone to see.

"I have. I'm still deciding. It's the most wonderful offer of course, but…"

"What possible buts can there be?"

"Smith's taking it even harder than I expected," Mike said, even though it wasn't the answer he intended to give, nor the answer that should have mattered.

"Hm." Wyatt thumbed through his program, clearly not reading a single page. "And you say there's nothing you can do here, other than work at this beastly bank?"

"My Pater hasn't got the money to send me to university, so, not especially. Which is why this Argentina job would be a godsend and—"

"But your chum could chuck it any day? _His_ pater still has it in truckloads, yes?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with—"

“Say, you couldn’t lend me five bob, could you?”

This took Mike by surprise. "I thought you had it in quite literal sackfuls."

"It's all tied up at the bank. I have it all in accounts, but not in disposable cash. I promise I can get it back to you tomorrow. I only need it for in the morning."

Mike had been rather tight for months, as his salary wasn’t much. What little he did make, went towards tea and other provisions for the flat. As well as into a bank account that his father had insisted he set up and contribute to.

“What’s it for?”

“I can't say. But look. We’ll make it all very official-like.” Wyatt wrote out a make-shift promissory note on an only semi-covered page of the program. “See, here, I’ve recorded it. ‘Five bob, originally belonging to one M. Jackson. Please, Mike. I need it desperately.”

“Oh, all right.” Mike didn’t really have it to spare, but he couldn’t bear to let down a friend in need. 

“Thanks, you won’t regret it,” Wyatt said.

"I'll tell you about the job tomorrow, I promise."

"Not if I tell you first," Wyatt said mysteriously.

* * *

Mike returned to the flat at a more normal hour than the previous night. He'd hoped to find Psmith still awake; they had spent less time together in the past couple of days than Mike had grown accustomed. It seemed that Psmith had tried to wait for him, but had fallen asleep on the sofa, his long legs hanging over the edge, and a cold cup of tea set precariously near a pointy elbow.

"Come on, now," Mike whispered softly, picking Psmith up and leading him, mostly unconscious, to his room.

"You can't go," Psmith mumbled, uncharacteristically artless and inarticulate in what sounded like a dream. "Can't possible survive without secretary and advisor and… and _you_. l…" The words petered out as soon as his head hit the pillow. 

Mike arranged him as comfortably as he could, wishing desperately that he'd been able to catch the end of whatever Psmith had been trying to say. 

He decided that Psmith was far too gone to notice him pressing a gentle kiss to his brow before heading back to his room.

But even without hearing the end of the sentence, Mike had made up his mind.

Psmith seemed not to remember a thing that had happened the next morning, and walked to work with Mike as usual.

* * *

Wyatt came round the bank just before lunchtime, asking for Mike to meet him in the entrance. 

"I can't leave just yet," Mike said by way of greeting. "But I can take a lunch hour in a few minutes."

“I'm not here for lunch.” Wyatt pressed an envelope into Mike’s hand.

“What’s this?”

“I’m repaying you the five bob.”

The envelope was thick, and didn’t feel like five bob at all. Mike peeked inside and saw a stack of notes, all in large denominations. “I don’t understand.”

“I took the five bob and put it on a long odd that I knew everyone else was too stupid to see. You don't spend years as a gaucho without learning how to spot a winner.”

“I thought you needed that money for something real.” Mike was annoyed. This was not the first time he’d been taken in by appeals to his generous nature, all for naught.

“No, _you_ needed it for something real, and I knew this was the only way to get it to you. Since the initial stakes were yours, so are the winnings. Don’t worry; I placed my own bet on a horse two races later, and made my own bundle.”

Mike’s mind spun. “But… why?”

“I know you won’t go to Argentina with me. I also know that you need to get out of this bank. What's in that envelope is just part of it; there's a slip in there with a bank account number holding the rest. What's here should be enough to send you to Cambridge, and then start whatever business you please. In England. With your odd duck of a chum." 

"Wyatt…" Mike didn't know what to say.

"Before tell me you couldn't possibly accept or any rubbish like that, I'll remind you that I have a promissory note. It's all yours by right, won off those five pounds you gave me yesterday. So spare me. I'll miss you, in Argentina. But I can see when I've lost. So long, Jackson. Write me as soon as you've decided what to do."

Mike let himself be embraced without quite knowing what was happening.

"And remember," Wyatt said in parting, "You aren't at school anymore. No one will sack you for sneaking out of doors at night. Nor for the other thing people get sacked for." 

With that, Wyatt saluted and then swung himself into an approaching taxi, leaving Mike standing in the vestibule holding a ransom's worth of cash.

* * *

Psmith had spent the day in some sort of ledger training with the managers, so Mike didn't have an opportunity to share his news until the evening. He returned to the flat to find Psmith attempting to brew some tea, and making an awful hash of it. He saw the detritus of a cocktail attempt as well, which must have come first. Psmith's hands weren’t shaking, but it was a near thing. 

"What on earth are you doing?" Mike asked. "You look ghastly. And you _never_ make your own beverages. Here, let me do that for you, like I always do."

"I required something fortifying, but lack the skills. Practice, practice, that is what I will need and what I will get. They say that ten thousand hours makes one a true maestro of any subject. I will become a brewer of tea if it kills me." 

Finally, Mike understood what Psmith was driving at, and had been driving at for days. "You won't get a lick of practice, because you've got me to help you. Now, sit down before you break anything else. What kind of cocktail would you like? A scotch and soda, as usual?"

Psmith fell into a dining chair with a less languid grace than usual. He gaped, if that was the word for it. "So, you aren’t going to South America?"

"No."

"What about Wyatt?" 

Mike looked at the clock as he poured the scotch. "I believe he was going for a jaunt in Paris and then sailing back to Argentina from there." 

"I don't know what to say."

"That's never been a problem of yours before."

"I know," Psmith said dazedly. "I don't quite know myself. Word goes round the clubs that Psmith has been lobotomized, knocked off his game, cut his tongue out. For I thought you had a sure thing there, a grand opportunity for adventure and sunshine. A man's life, for which you were born."

"It's probably too hot in Argentina anyway. And there's no cricket to be had. Wyatt's on about the girls, but that isn't quite enough to tempt me." All while he was saying this, he moved to sit beside Psmith, setting the drink on the table between them. 

"What _would_ have been enough to tempt you?"

"You, you silly sod." Mike leaned in, feeling a 'moment' come for the first time since he'd gone to visit Psmith at his family's estate. He felt the cash pressing a bulge into his waistcoat and felt Psmith's breath hot on his cheek. He remembered Wyatt's words of courage; there was nothing to fear here, he told himself as he lay a simple kiss to Psmith's lips. The worst he would face was a little humiliation; and even if that came, he had the means to leave with dignity and find his own rooms. 

Psmith went statuesquely still. So still, in fact, that Mike panicked, thinking he had transgressed even more recklessly than anticipated. He readied his apologies and was about to get up with Psmith stretched a long arm to gather Mike in close. This time, the kiss was anything but simple. Psmith kissed like an out of practice athlete in the sport—confident but careful, slow to start then increasing in heat as he remembered the motions. 

In their ardor, the scotch and soda went flying, untasted. 

"Never mind it," Mike said when Psmith moved to clean it up. He held Psmith's hand to keep it still. Not knowing quite what to say, all he could come up with was a joyous, "I _am_ glad."

"As am I, as well as surprised. I had readied myself to a period of mourning. My wardrobe in hues of black would have caused the magazines to reconsider the colour. The bank would not know what hit it."

"We aren't going to work in the bank anymore," Mike announced. 

"We aren't?"

"You can if you want to, but I want to open my own business. Or go to Cambridge. Anything."

"You seem to have come into funds since this morning."

"I have. And it's my turn to pay for dinner."

Psmith stood up and dragged Mike to the bedroom. "I find myself not in the least bit hungry. Not for the sort of food one finds out of doors, anyway."

Mike decided, neither did he.


End file.
